Fallout 4 lead designer on how Todd Howard helped nail the game's paranoia theme

Fallout 4 has its fair share of synth detectives and food paste, but something was still missing during early development. Lead designer Emil Pagliarulo opened up about it in a new interview with Rock Paper Shotgun.

"The game was missing something, as far as one of the overall themes."

Fallout 4 is set in a post-war version of Boston, and Pagliarulo – who grew up in the city – recalls a vague childhood fear of "the boogeyman": mob boss Whitey Bulger. That feeling ultimately helped define the tone of the whole game.

"I remember having a conversation with Todd Howard that there should be this overriding sense of paranoia that people have, and they don't know who to trust."

Bethesda built that anxiety into the game's grim narrative, where the citizens of 2287 are tricked, kidnapped, and replaced by the Institute swapping humans out for synthetic doubles.

Boston's criminal past seeped into specific characters too. Pagliarulo described villain Eddie Winter – whose pristine white hair remains somehow immaculate after centuries of skin necrosis – as "very film noir crime-ish, in a very Boston sense." "It's all tied together" to Whitey Bulger and the real-life Winter Hill Gang, he said.

But paranoia alone wasn't enough. Pagliarulo said it was equally important that in Fallout 4, "throughout all the bad stuff and paranoia, people are still trying to rebuild society."

He compared the approach to the previous entry in the series.

"When you look at Fallout 3, everywhere from Rivet City to Megaton, everybody's just getting by. But in Fallout 4, people are trying to grow beyond that a little bit."